Redneck vol. 1: Deep in the Heart

Bartlett Bowman is a man who appreciates the simple things in life.  Like sitting on the porch of his family house in the cool of an evening in a small Texas town sipping a blood beer.  Blood beer? That’s right, because like the other members of the Bowman clan, Bartlett is a vampire. They’ve been running the local barbecue joint for years living off of the blood of the animals they slaughter which allows them to maintain an uneasy peace with their rivals, the pious Landrys.  That all changes one evening when a drunken Bartlett wanders into town to keep an eye on his nephews and wakes up in the morning on his porch with all of the family’s cattle slaughtered and one of the kids burning in the sun while hanging from a tree. Bartlett has no idea how this happened or even if it was really him that has sparked a new conflict between the Bowmans and the Landrys as his family has so much to lose now.

“Redneck” comes to us from writer Donny Cates with newcomer (to me at least) Lisandro Estherren providing the art.  It’s the writer’s follow-up to his breakout Image hit “God Country” and feels like the lesser of his creator-owned work at this point if only because it’s clear he’s playing a longer game here.  That title clearly benefited from its short length as it forced Cates and artist Geoff Shaw to throw in every crazy idea they had in addition to firmly tying it to relatable human concerns.  “Redneck” is very much in the same vein (pun intended) as it’s basically a southern family drama with vampires. That adds a certain amount of spice to the story, as do interesting characters like young psychic Perry, and the traditional as he is mad Grandpa.  Still, the story in this volume ticks all the familiar boxes you’d expect it to only with vampires this time around. Estherren’s art is fine as it gives the story a roughness that works but not much more. All this results in a first volume that is a perfectly fine read, yet one that I hope goes in more interesting directions now that the process of setting things up is out of the way.